[KS] Se habla Han'gul?

[Kaliher, Kenneth L.]

As a civilian employee of USFK for nearly two decades, I am accustomed to
hearing some Americans in the military community butcher the Korean
language.  A frequent offense is the use of "Han'gu^l" to mean the Korean
language; the worst offenders compound the infraction by pronouncing it
"Hahn-GOOL."  Perhaps these perpetrators wish to show off what little Korean
they think they know, and can't be bothered to learn "Hangungmal" -- the use
of which would be silly, anyway; how often do we use "Deutsche" or
"Nihonggo" in an otherwise English sentence?
 
What concerns -- and befuddles -- me at present is the apparent willingness
of KATUSAs (Korean soldiers serving in U.S. units), and perhaps other
Koreans working for USFK, to endorse what I perceive as a clear misuse of
the language.  The on-post weekly Seoul Word carries a regular feature now
titled "Korean Phrase of the week" (after I badgered them into changing it
from "Hangul Phrase...").  The Korean language subhead underneath, however,
still reads "Han'gu^ru^l paeupsida."  

My own limited, informal poll of reasonably well educated Korean
acquaintances has turned up not a single one who says it is correct to use
"Han'gu^l" to mean the Korean language, rather than the alphabet.  (To me,
it is analogous to saying someone "speaks Cyrillic.")  I would like,
however, to poll a wider range of sources.   

Thus my question to the List:  Do literate Koreans use "Han'gu^l" to refer
to their spoken language, as opposed to the alphabet?

-- If not, I will continue my quixotic quest to keep the AFKN airwaves and
Defense Department discourse free of such abuses.  
-- If so, I promise to curtail any further curmudgeonly commentary on the
subject, and to resign myself to the inevitable mongrelization of the O^mma
Tongue.  

Thank you for your research assistance!

Ken Kaliher

P.S.  At least we're no longer subjected to volleys of "taksan" and
"sukoshi" from the would-be linguists of the 1960s and 1970s who thought
THEY were speaking Korean....

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